In this paper numerical simulations of the viscous sintering phenomenon are presented, i.e. of the process that occurs (for example) during the densification of a porous glass heated to such a high temperature that it becomes a viscous fluid. The numerical approach consists of simulating the shrinkage of a two-dimensional unit cell which is in some sense representative for the porous glass. Hence it is assumed that the microstructure of the glass can be described by a periodic continuation in two directions of this unit cell. In this way it is possible to obtain quite a few theoretical insights of the viscous sintering process with respect to both pore size and pore distribution of the material. In particular this model is able to examine the consequences of microstructures on the evolution of the pore size distribution. It appears that only for higher densities the numerical densification rate of one cylindrical pore in a square unit cell is in agreement with the widely used closed pores model of Mackenzie and Shuttleworth. However, the major finding is that the pores vanish in order of size one afte~another; so the smallest pores first, followed by the larger ones. Moreover it is shown that pores with concave boundary parts may initially grow before they start shrinking at a later time stage.